What The Lame Duck Election Year Could Mean For Cryptocurrency Regulation

Cryptocurrencies are ‘unregulated’ and they might trigger the next financial crisis. This seems to be the dominant narrative about cryptocurrencies. The only problem is that it’s not true.

It certainly isn’t true in countries like China where domestic cryptocurrency exchanges are banned, and the promotion of initial coin offerings is too. In the United States, where there is a more balanced approach, cryptocurrencies have been copy and pasted into an awkward mix of state and federal regulatory standards. In the absence of Congress explicitly taking a strong stand one way or another, regulatory agencies have been forced to scramble to deal with new technologies without much explicit direction from their supposed Constitutional superiors.

It’s clear that on this issue as with many others that members of Congress…